I’ve been reading about Evan Rachel Wood’s allegations/case against Marilyn Manson. Nothing surprising there - it’s the logic of, “If it smells like shit and looks like shit…”, etc. But one of the articles on the subject includes the following extract:
https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-e...00004.html?amp
Now, I’m aware Wood is no scholar and that she was making a media statement. But this extract made me think of the ways in which the word “ironic” is used, especially when it comes to so-called subversive art, which is not unlike cases where something abjectly bad is called a “satire” with the implication that if the effect is deliberate, the thing can’t be “bad” any longer (eg Showgirls). It’s as if “ironic” means “not for real”, but all it technically means is something is different from what was expected.
This also applies to people like Lars von Trier (not that “ironic” is a word that comes to mind here), even when it’s about something like The House That Jack Built purportedly being a “commentary” on violence/violent people ending up in hell etc. If we’re making a film with a remarkably stupid blonde character who has no agency and few lines, can anyone seriously be expected to take that as “ironic” or as social “commentary” implying that, oh, wink-wink, nudge-nudge, we know blondes aren’t really stupid, don’t we, boys and girls?
I’m not sure whether it wouldn’t be better to call a spade a spade in these cases. It’s not that I doubt Wood did genuinely believe Manson’s behaviour was “ironic”, after all she was young and in love and so on, but I do wonder why when we see an artist revel in something transgressive we don’t think, “Wait, this person could actually be for real” more often, or at least think that before anything else. I don’t know if I see how one can coherently argue Nazism can be “spun on its head”, and the same goes for so many things, even von Trier’s comments about Hitler. I really have to wonder who would take that kind of comment to be “ironic”.
Wood, who began dating Manson when she was 18 and he was 38, says that she thought the Nazi paraphernalia and imagery Manson used on stage “was ironic”, adding: “I thought his whole spiel was taking the images of Hitler and spinning it on its head. I thought it was a commentary on Nazism.
Now, I’m aware Wood is no scholar and that she was making a media statement. But this extract made me think of the ways in which the word “ironic” is used, especially when it comes to so-called subversive art, which is not unlike cases where something abjectly bad is called a “satire” with the implication that if the effect is deliberate, the thing can’t be “bad” any longer (eg Showgirls). It’s as if “ironic” means “not for real”, but all it technically means is something is different from what was expected.
This also applies to people like Lars von Trier (not that “ironic” is a word that comes to mind here), even when it’s about something like The House That Jack Built purportedly being a “commentary” on violence/violent people ending up in hell etc. If we’re making a film with a remarkably stupid blonde character who has no agency and few lines, can anyone seriously be expected to take that as “ironic” or as social “commentary” implying that, oh, wink-wink, nudge-nudge, we know blondes aren’t really stupid, don’t we, boys and girls?
I’m not sure whether it wouldn’t be better to call a spade a spade in these cases. It’s not that I doubt Wood did genuinely believe Manson’s behaviour was “ironic”, after all she was young and in love and so on, but I do wonder why when we see an artist revel in something transgressive we don’t think, “Wait, this person could actually be for real” more often, or at least think that before anything else. I don’t know if I see how one can coherently argue Nazism can be “spun on its head”, and the same goes for so many things, even von Trier’s comments about Hitler. I really have to wonder who would take that kind of comment to be “ironic”.